My response to the RINO Blogger telling FR to Knock Off the RINO Bashing and to all RINO Pushers

Well, unfortunately you are wrong. It was technically made a right when that 1986 federal law was signed and we were left holding the bill.

OK, I looked it up... here's what they are saying from Heritage Foundation:

Politics is the art of the possible, and Governor Romney had to temper his ambitions and make compromises to get his plan through the state’s legislature. At the same time, many Democrats in the legislature set aside their misgivings about some of the elements of the Governor’s proposal, such as its steps toward deregulating insurance, out of a desire not to lose a big piece of Massachusetts’s federal Medicaid funding. With time and experience, revisions can and should be made to this initial legislation.

But that should not overshadow the significance of Massachusetts’ achievement in enacting a bipartisan health care reform bill that fundamentally shifts the state’s health care system in the direction of greater patient and consumer empowerment and control. The Governor and legislature have provided their citizens with the tools to achieve what the public really wants: a health system with all the familiar comforts of existing employer group coverage but with the added benefits of portability, choice, and control.

Other governors and legislators would be well advised to consider this basic model as a framework for health care reform in their own states.
Edmund F. Haislmaier is a Research Fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Bottomline, it was an improvement, but revisions need to be made over time and they agree it was an experiment that will require further tweaking. Also, neither Romney or Heritage ever wanted to impose anything like this on the nation as a whole. Heritage points out how they were for states' rights and each state choosing what was best for their citizens. Really, everyone needs to calm down. We are all basically on the same page and agree on most things, but for some reason are choosing to disagree. Time to move forward.

Same spin I have seen from all the Romneyites. Ignores history and the base of the problem, over regulation which has been used to by the left to slowly take over health care over the past few decades and get it out of the the hands of the charity hospitals that have provided truly universal health care since the days of Constantine as well as the fact the plan even if left intact with no outside influence had conservative issues.

On it's face the Heritage plan was an interesting attempt at a Conservative approach to the issue, but it still left too much in the hands of government and did involve mandates. It also addressed nothing in the way of reducing operating costs and regulations, the true issue in the current medical care crisis.

In real world practice, as we have already seen demonstrated in MA, the Heritage plan was an opening for abuse from the left. It should never have been tried and a conservative would have known better, as proven in the fact that no one else has pulled the idea off the shelf and into reality.

Please note that the Heritage Foundation was hopeful in the piece you quote from THREE YEARS AGO: April 20, 2006.

On April 4, 2007 they gave an update: “As Massachusetts’s experience demonstrates, health policy is riddled with unintended consequences. They can be costly, both economically and politically.”

On October 28, of THIS YEAR, they wrote: “As a policy matter, the Massachusetts reform is a classic “mixed bag.” The state has achieved 97 percent coverage, its uncompensated care costs have declined by almost 40 percent, it pioneered market reforms that have created portability and personal ownership of private coverage, and it also experienced an unprecedented expansion in private health insurance coverage. Because of continued excessive regulation, benefit mandates, and special-interest spending, the state has not been successful in bending the health care cost curve downward. As former Governor Romney recently noted, universal coverage, or something close to it, does not translate into reduced health care costs.”

As usual with Mormons, context shows that they don’t have the unconditional support they claim. Hopefully, this may help those who have worried that Heritage has been tarnished by their ‘support’ of Romney.

You wrote: “Would you do away with laws requiring people to buy car insurance? That’s a mandate, too, and somewhat analogous to the mandate to purchase health insurance.”

Once again, that’s a poor analogy. ‘Car’ insurance is in fact catastrophic health insurance to benefit victims of the holder of the policy; it places financial responsibility on the one who is the actual and proximate cause of injury.

‘Health’ insurance as most people experience it is much more like membership in the Auto Club; all kinds of basic services, within limits. Since ‘expanding access’ is often taken not only to mean access to more people, but access to more services to those already covered, ‘expanding access’ in practice would be like the Auto Club both providing the basic roadside services to everybody and providing their tires and gas, too. Triple-A membership would be loved (until people started complaining about quality), but unprofitable.

Note that Auto Club membership is mostly about convenience, not personal responsibility: a stranded motorist could walk to a pay phone and call service numbers on his or her own, instead of calling Triple-A. Auto Club membership just makes this easier, cheaper, and more reliable.

We the people as yet do not pay the “free riding” of stranded motorists without Auto Club membership, not do we (yet) complain of the unfair buying advantages of those who are members of warehouse stores. Why should health care be different?

As to your “some kind of minimal ‘charity’ care, maybe funded by states,” this is the very system to which you object when you write, “government is the source of the problem. The government won’t allow hospitals to turn away non-paying patients.” Besides, isn’t the complaint that people are under-served rather than un-served?

BTW, the last time I went to a hospital (without health insurance) I had to pay up front: no service without payment. Perhaps if I hadn’t spoken English it might have been different, but that’s a subject for another thread.

I appreciate your general civility (sometimes a little thin at FR!) on an explosive political subject.

However, a right is not merely what a government claims it to be (see 2nd Amendment). A good test is whether Robinson Crusoe could exercise it all alone on his island. If the ‘right’ has to be provided by some man Friday, then the ‘right’ is actually some form of servitude for the provider.

Legally, of course, we have to treat it as a right unless a court rejects it (when outer darkness gets heaters?), but no private citizen has to go along with a court’s characterization (see abortion).

Finally, you are posting the Heritage Foundation’s cautious hopefulness from 2006. They are much less sanguine about Massachusetts’ system now. True, they do not reject RomneyCare as a total failure, but do regard it as a cautionary tale of unintended consequences.

PROOF RomneyCARE is a Disaster (and Romney is utterly clueless)

“Small businesses bridle at health insurance hikes (Romneycare strangles Mass. businesses)
Bob Carroll, owner of a Billerica distributor of paint spraying equipment, recently got
some really bad news from Blue Cross-Blue Shield: His company’s health insurance rates are going up 47 percent in January.”

“Republicans warn: Rationing medicine has already begun
But in a joint opinion piece called "Govt.-Run Health Care Isn't the Answer," published
in the online version of The Advocate, a leading homosexual magazine, Sen. Tom
Coburn, R-Okla., and GOProud's Christopher R. Barron warned the homosexual
community that the Ryan White CARE Act has already demonstrated how government-
run health care has introduced rationing and waiting lists and cost the lives of the people under its provisions.”

“DEATH PANELS OPEN FOR BUSINESS IN MASSACHUSETTS”

“President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar defended the
possibility of removing organs from terminally ill patients without their permission.”

“You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way," said Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess.”

“State plan may place limits on patients’ hospital options( Mass. RomneyCare )”

"Romney Visits Nebraska, Talks Health Care [where he defends Romneycare] “

"Paying the Health Tax in Massachusetts [Romneycare]
Massachusetts requires every resident to have health insurance, and this
year, without informing us directly, the state had changed the rules in a way that made
our bare-bones policy no longer acceptable. Unless we ponied up for a pricier policy we
neither need nor want—or enrolled in a government-sponsored insurance plan—we
would have to pay $1,000 each year to the state.
How did we become outlaws? “

"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood."
It was only a matter of time.
They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget.
The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic.
The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006."

A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay State’s ‘Grand Experiment’ Fails [RomneyCare]
"Initiated on Mr. Romney’s gubernatorial watch in 2006, this “experiment” has fallen on hard times, and predictably so. “

Health care in Massachusetts: a warning for America [Romney brings Mass. to its knees]
The Bay State's mandatory insurance law is raising costs, limiting access, and lowering care.
Three years ago, Massachusetts adopted a plan requiring all residents to purchase health
insurance, with state subsidies for lower-income residents. But rather than creating a
utopia of high-quality affordable healthcare, the result has been the exact opposite –
skyrocketing costs, worsened access, and lower quality care."

"‘Severe’ doc shortage seen hiking wait time
“The shortage is getting more severe”"

“Health costs to rise again.( RomneyCare )
The state’s major health insurers plan to raise premiums by about 10 percent next year,
prompting many employers to reduce benefits and shift additional costs to workers.”

“Nation’s ill-advised to follow Mass. plan [Health plan a failure]
September 17, 2009 The canary is dead.
Massachusetts, the model for the ObamaCare universal insurance plan, is the canary in
the health care coal mine. Yesterday, its obit appeared on the front page of both The Wall
Street Journal and The Boston Globe-Democrat “

"Bay State Insurance Premiums Highest in Country - Boston Globe August 22, 2009
Massachusetts has the most expensive family health insurance premiums in the country,
according to a new analysis that highlights the state’s challenge in trying to rein in medical costs
40 percent higher than in 2003. Over the same period, premiums nationwide rose an average of 33 percent..."

"Massachusetts: the laboratory for ObamaCare“

"Massachusetts' Obama-like reforms increase health costs, wait times [RomneyCare]
Premiums are growing 21 to 46 percent faster than the national average"

"Mass. Pushes Rationing to Control Universal Healthcare Costs (RomneyCare)
A 10-member Massachusetts state healthcare advisory board unanimously recommended
that the state begin rationing healthcare to keep the state’s marquee universal health care program afloat financially.”

"1,000 cancer patients 'refused treatment'"

"Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already
ERs in Massachusetts have not seen a downturn in visits. On the contrary, it seems that ER visits are actually on the upswing in the Bay State. In fact, in 2007 they were higher than the national average by 20 percent...”

"Hospital patients 'left in agony'"

"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood.
In Massachusetts's latest crisis,
They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget.
The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic.
The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006
Mr. Romney should have known better before signing on to this not-so-grand experiment, especially since the state's "free market" reforms that he boasts about have proven to be irrelevant when not fictional.
Only 21,000 people have used the "connector" that was supposed to link individuals to private insurers."

A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay State’s ‘Grand Experiment’ Fails [RomneyCare]
… fiscal troubles aplenty within Repubican Mitt Romney’s brainchild, Massachusetts’ “grand experiment” in “universal” health care."
"Initiated on Mr. Romney’s gubernatorial watch in 2006, this “experiment” has fallen on hard times, and predictably so.
Even though the Bay State commenced its program with a far smaller percentage of uninsured residents than exists nationwide,
“RomneyCare” is threatening to bankrupt the state.“

"Dem Congresswoman Admits Obama Health Care Plan Will Destroy Private Health Insurance Industry"

"Romney’s mistreatments a sick man, as Gov. Mitt Romney meets a medical marijuana patient"

Thanks for the Ping.

Mrreaganaut is echoing what I have essentially said all along. This was an exercise by a few think tank folks at Heritage, and is not something they were pushing like gang busters, so don't get out of sorts with them, they are still on our side.

The couple of guys in the think tank were essentially working out a plan with the premise that it must be conservatively based and viable under the current environment our health care system has found itself in the past few decades. As it is they came up with the best idea when such constraints were in place. The problem is those conditions cannot and will not allow for a purely Conservative plan, much less plan that would not immediately be open to abuse and modification in the real world.

The only Conservative approach is to change the conditions. Tort reform, regulation reduction, competition, tax incentives to treat indigents and the like are conservative approaches because they limit government and allow the free market and tax payers to decide how treat will be covered.

For example the 1986 law that has been mentioned here that requires hospitals to render emergency treatment was never intended in theory to allow for the treatment of colds and hang nails, but for true emergencies. Treat the life threatening condition, transfer when stable was the idea. The left of course never allowed for that to be followed. It became “You must treat anyone who darkens the doors”. A hospital cannot even direct you to the free clinic down the street.

As it is the Heritage plan was flawed even in the purity of the lab. It was interesting but hardly useful. the disturbing part is that anyone with any sense of the real world should know that by even introducing such an act you would open the lefty flood gates and end up with a disaster. MA proves this right in spades.

That is what I find funny about the Mitt defenders when they try and defend this fiasco. Ok it is not what Mitt intended, so you mean to tell me that a great mind like Mitt Romney did not see this coming? If he didn't he is a naive political buffoon, if he did he is an accomplice in the fleecing of the people and is showing his socialist streak.

No great choices but the only two the fit.

And that doesn't even get me started on the ‘but he was right in the beginning, the democrats screwed it all up” meme. If that was true he would not still be praising the plan's success even to this very day.

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